What makes a garden special? How is it that some gardens, however expensively landscaped, well maintained, are just mundane? Yet other gardens, whether just as manicured or running wild, never fail to lift the spirits on even the dullest of days. A well-trodden path lined with snowdrops, a mossy rill, an ancient oak or a beautifully framed view could be the magic ingredient which lifts a country garden out of the mundane.
Special gardens, whether large or small, have a sense of completeness, the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Sometimes it seems to be a genius loci, in the classical sense of a spirit of place, being at one with the landscape. Or, as at Sissinghurst or Great Dixter, the enduring power of a single person’s passion and vision.
I was reminded of another special garden, now sadly lost, by a recent visit to Howard Nurseries in Norfolk. The nursery is home to a collection of irises originally bred by artist and plantsman Cedric Morris, and painstaking rediscovered in recent years by former Sissinghurst head gardener Sarah Cook.
In the mid-20th Century, Benton End in Suffolk was home to The East Anglian School of Painting & Drawing, the unorthodox artist’s academy Cedric ran with partner Arthur Lett-Haines. The painting, by one of Cedric’s students, shows the garden at Benton End. It was a popular subject for pupils and tutors alike. It was not a ‘designed’ garden in any sense, used to grow vegetables as well as for Cedric’s plant breeding experiments, notably the bearded irises which he painted so often and so well. It contained many rare and unusual plants, providing an enthralling but rather chaotic focus for all the creativity which thrived at the school.
Nevertheless Benton End was a huge inspiration for many gardeners, including Vita Sackville-West, who grew Benton End irises at Sissinghurst, and Beth Chatto who met Cedric in the 1950s and was inspired to create her own iconic garden.
While it would not have won any design awards, perhaps the memory of Benton End does have something for the designer looking for the magic formula that makes a garden special – a knowledge and appreciation of plants, their colours and forms – an artist’s appreciation of the nuance of colour – and most of all a creative energy, always looking at the world with a fresh eye.
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” William Butler Yeats.
Chelsea 2015 Cedric Morris irises return
